


Split

by MistMorpheus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Mental Health Issues, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 07:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18244766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistMorpheus/pseuds/MistMorpheus
Summary: He had never--and would never--love anyone more.





	Split

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at http://mistmorpheus.lofter.com/post/1d86fa96_126f820d on 13 March, 2018. Written long before that. Upload for archival purposes.  
> By no means was I--am I--an expert in mental disorders, so please bear with it if my work demonstrates an apparent lack of understanding of what I intended to portray. Constructive criticism is welcomed.

“Long week?”

“Absolutely. What else?”

George took off his overcoat, casually shoved it under the bed, and sat down.

“Didn’t you buy it with money, George?” his mother’s reproachful voice suddenly sounded through the semi-darkness, making him shudder. A split second reminded him that he wasn’t at the Burrow. Not anymore. “Shut up, Fred. That’s what you’ve been working on? Old trick.”

“You were so nearly fooled.” Fred protested joyously. He could make out his brother’s silhouette, his shoulders trembling with quiet, mischievous laughter, and he realized he himself was laughing just as hard.

He lay down on his back, and Fred on the other side of the room lay down too.

“Name it,” Fred suggested.

“It’s not going to sell anyway.”

“It is. And you’d better name it if it’s not.”

“Why for Merlin’s sake should I name something that’s not going to sell?”

“A good name sells.”

“I’m not good at good names.”

“You sound like you had a great week in Azkaban,” Fred observed. “You alright, bro?”

“Who are you talking to, George?” Angelina’s voice sounded downstairs.

“No one,” George shouted back.

 

Angelina was staring at the calendar. The twenty-fourth Friday in a row. Every Friday since six months ago, her husband George Weasley had insisted retreating to the unused guest bedroom. He was trying to grasp inspiration for new products there, he said. His mind was most active when he was lingering on the borderlines of dreams and consciousness. A different sleeping environment can do him good. So he said.

Angelina had to admit that, to some extent, it worked. It seemed that inspiration came to George more often than usual. In fact, it was a great thing. It certainly gave both of them more freedom; sometimes it was like a night off, for going back to where she was as a teenager, to read, to write, to listen to the radio and to let random thoughts crowd into her mind.

It was a magnificent thing if she ignored that George was actually talking a lot alone in the room.

At first she tried to block it out, for it somehow could be considered her husband’s privacy. However, as it developed, she couldn’t help herself. For all she knew, the only stove in the house was on the first floor, and George, an able handyman he might have been, had a slight chance of building another in an already furnished room plus having it connected to the Floo network; and no matter how hard she tried, she could hear no voice except that of George’s.

Furthermore, as she listened, she came to realize that his sentences formed complete conversations. There was no need for any other to join in.

Split personality. That was the term she found and had clung to. And Fred had come back through it.

Since Fred’s death she had been dreading a major breakout, but it never came. George’s first year after the battle contained only silence. Sure, it was impossible for George to achieve absolute silence and bathe himself in tears; nevertheless, there was less chit-chat, less pranks and less laughter. They got married that year, and one day, which was the Friday five months ago, he suddenly snapped back. She thought he had got over him at last but he had not. He had made him come back.

Strangely, though, she felt stressed but not afraid. She knew it was a mental disorder, but she wasn’t worried sick as some depressed wife patrolling the corridors of St Mungo’s. She knew George was being haunted by a dead person, but it didn’t give her the goose bumps. Somehow she found herself used to, even reassured by the idea that George had nurtured a new Fred inside him. Somehow, it was supposed to be that way – they were never separated alive, naturally death could not bring them apart. Sometimes she was shocked at finding herself wishing for Fred to come back and face her instead of lurking in the guest room every Friday night, for he was the one whom she had fallen in love with in the first place; but she always quickly pushed that thought away, feeling guilty, curious and slightly horrified.

 

George lay back on the bed, breathing harder than he’d intended. He stared at the ceiling and tried to steady his breath. Of course Angelina knew. He’d known that she would know. When he was turning his back towards her, he could feel her worried eyes scanning him.

George Weasley noticed things and had emotions. “What a shock,” he said to himself and laughed softly. True, he’d grown far too sentimental – and sensitive – since five months ago. Before that, the first year was filled with disappointment instead of grief: he woke up everyday believing that it was just a nightmare, that everything would be fine, only to find that no one was to finish his sentences, to laugh with him, or to plan the most amazing pranks in the world. For the whole year he wasn’t able to shed a single tear for his brother – not even at his funeral – because he couldn’t acknowledge his death. He spent the three hundred and sixty-five days in stubborn denial and vain expectancy.

It was most strange that once Fred came back, he knew he was dead. It happened in an instant: on the Friday night five months ago, he pushed open the door of the guest room, saw the silhouette sitting on the edge of one of the beds, and at once knew he was dead. Simple deduction: there was absolutely no one in the room; it was absolutely Fred on the bed; so it was his mind’s work. Fred was gone and here. Suddenly he felt extremely grateful and extremely sad. Suddenly he was all human once again, perhaps more human than ever before, because he was all transparent with emotions, and they leaked out from his eyes silently with warmth.

He was certain he was dead because he was in his mind, his heart, his veins, his everything. He was in him. And that’s the only place he can be in.

George closed his eyes.

“Goodnight, Fred.”

“Goodnight.”

He had never--and would never--love anyone more.


End file.
